Bessemer Group Inc. Buys Shares of 918,429 Block, Inc. $XYZ

Bessemer Group Inc. bought a new stake in Block, Inc. (NYSE:XYZ) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 918,429 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,389,000. Bessemer Group Inc. owned 0.15% of Block as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. ARK Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at $210,016,000. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at $204,223,000. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at $36,353,000. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at $17,156,000. Finally, Asset Management One Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Block in the 2nd quarter valued at $14,850,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.44% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

XYZ has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $82.00 price objective on Block and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Block from $90.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 21st. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $80.00 price target on shares of Block in a report on Tuesday, September 23rd. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Block from $70.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Finally, Truist Financial upped their price target on Block from $70.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a report on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have assigned a Buy rating, nine have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Block has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $82.42.

Block Trading Up 0.8%

NYSE:XYZ opened at $80.14 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $76.52 and a 200-day simple moving average of $68.64. The stock has a market cap of $48.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.16, a P/E/G ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 2.71. Block, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.27 and a 1 year high of $99.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a current ratio of 1.96.

Block (NYSE:XYZ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 7th. The technology company reported $0.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.41. The business had revenue of $6.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.32 billion. Block had a return on equity of 7.85% and a net margin of 12.32%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 1.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Block, Inc. will post 2.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Block

In other news, insider Dhananjay Prasanna sold 5,659 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.72, for a total transaction of $417,181.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 289,492 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,341,350.24. This represents a 1.92% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Amrita Ahuja sold 9,966 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.20, for a total value of $729,511.20. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 298,431 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,845,149.20. This represents a 3.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 123,041 shares of company stock worth $9,355,075. Corporate insiders own 10.49% of the company’s stock.

Block Profile

Square, Inc provides payment and point-of-sale solutions in the United States and internationally. The company's commerce ecosystem includes point-of-sale software and hardware that enables sellers to turn mobile and computing devices into payment and point-of-sale solutions. It offers hardware products, including Magstripe reader, which enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Contactless and chip reader that accepts EMV® chip cards and Near Field Communication payments; Chip card reader, which accepts EMV® chip cards and enables swiped transactions of magnetic stripe cards; Square Stand, which enables an iPad to be used as a payment terminal or full point of sale solution; and Square Register that combines its hardware, point-of-sale software, and payments technology, as well as managed payments solutions.